Graphs

CORSO BUSINESS di Antonio Portaluri e Raffaele Nardella

Introduzione

L'argomento affrontato in questa Unità del Corso Business di Lingua Inglese sono i grafici.

All’interno della Unità si trova un brano in Lingua Inglese con alcune parole in grassetto collegate al Glossario (si apre in una nuova finestra) per le traduzioni. E' inoltre possibile: ascoltare il file audio, necessario all’esercitazioni sia di Listening (comprensione dell'ascolto) che di Speaking (ripetizione delle frasi ascoltate); esercitarsi con i 4 Vocabulary Check (controllo lessicale) e i 5 Mix (riordino della frase), esercizi interattivi che forniscono l’autocorrezione con feedback immediato al corsista. Al termine si può svolgere il relativo Test

ACTIVITIES

GRAPHS

Diagrams show data in visual form, giving a complete viewing of the matter.

The most largely used graphic displays are the flow-chart, the bar-chart, the pie-chart and the tree-diagram.

FLOW CHART

The flow-chart is used for describing processes and is represented as a sequence of the signs linked by flow-lines. Among the most important symbols used in flow-charts is the oval sign, which shows the beginning and the end of a process, the diamond which indicates two possible directions, the rectangle which represents a step of the process.

BAR CHART

The bar-chart is a graph where bars of various heights and lengths are used to indicate quantities.

PIE CHART

The pie-chart is a circle scheme used to show the whole quantity; each slice of the pie indicates the percentages.

TREE DIAGRAM

The tree-diagram is a graph which shows the belonging of elements to a category and is used for classification.

The description of a graph is the interpretation of information it gives.You may find it useful to learn some words used for describing diagrams:

direction	up	down	level
verb	go up, climb, increase, rise	go down, drop, decline, decrease, fall	not change, remain constant
noun	increase, rise	decline, decrease, drop, fall	no change
adjective	fast, gradual, sharp, slight, steady, sudden
adverb	fast, gradually, sharply, slightly, steadily, suddenly

Here are some sentences referring to the graphs above:

FLOW CHART
"To start a car, put the gear lever in the neutral position, then, as a first step, insert the key into the ignition switch; as a second step, turn the key clockwise: the engine starts (A1), the engine doesn't start (A2)".

BAR CHART
"The selling of notebooks rises sharply in 2000".

"There is a sudden drop of notebooks selling in 2001".

"The selling of PCs decreases slightly from 1999 to 2001".

PIE CHART
"Fifty-seven percent of Italian people have a mobile phone."

TREE DIAGRAM
"A computer system is composed of two main elements: hardware and software".